Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Athletics/Archive 8

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Images of the 2016 European Championships in Athletics

To let you know, I added about 100 image of the 2016 European Championships in Athletics at Wiki Commons. See Commons:Category:2016 European Championships in Athletics. Happy editing! Sander.v.Ginkel (Talk) 22:52, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

Olympic event articles

Please note that there is still a lot of work to do in creating the Olympic event articles. You can use the 2012 article set as a template for this year's ones. Timetable information can be found here. If you want to add preview information on defending champions, world leaders etc. then the IAAF preview articles here will be useful. I've done the relay articles already. I don't think start lists have been released yet, so best just to leave the result tables empty if you're adding those too. Thanks! SFB 23:09, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Help with a draft

I recently moved an article to User:Buchbibliothek/Doping victims of the GDR. The article had no context to explain the material, which is related to Doping in East Germany. I figured that moving it would help give the user (Buchbibliothek) time to work on the page, as well as to show where the list wouldn't be best served as a section in the main article. It's fairly short, so unless there are more names this could probably be included relatively easily. It could also be made into a category as well, since that's a possibility.

I'm a little concerned as well over potential BLP issues, since this type of thing would need to be very well sourced. The term "victim" is also mildly concerning, given that the term can mean a great many things to different people and if there were any athletes that did this willingly (or were largely perceived as having done it willingly) then the term could be seen as invalid or technically incorrect. Renaming would probably be a good idea and I've left a suggestion on the draft's talk page, although that one would still need a lot of work.

I figured that this would be the best place to look for help, given that I rarely edit athletic related articles and aren't as familiar with the overall guidelines as others may be. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 08:01, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Agree with all of the above. BLP problem is the most serious one: per WP:BLPSOURCES, the entire content can (and perhaps should) be deleted on the spot (as WP:BLP extends to drafts too), so my advice would be to provide sources ASAP and delete everything that's unsourced. GregorB (talk) 10:46, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Notice to participants at this page about adminship

Many participants here create a lot of content, have to evaluate whether or not a subject is notable, decide if content complies with BLP policy, and much more. Well, these are just some of the skills considered at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship.

So, please consider taking a look at and watchlisting this page:

You could be very helpful in evaluating potential candidates, and even finding out if you would be a suitable RfA candidate.

Many thanks and best wishes,

Anna Frodesiak (talk) 00:47, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

World Championships in Athletics article rename

Please note there is a move discussion at Talk:IAAF World Championships in Athletics proposing that the article (and its related articles) be moved to IAAF World Championships. Please join the discussion. Thanks. SFB 16:21, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

IP Vandal

Our IP results vandal continues their dastardly ways. I have tracked their recent IP's beginning in 84.13. to Northern England, Newcastle and Coxhoe specifically. A deliberate moving target. The pattern is meticulous results editing, improving the marks of particularly English athletes creating fictitious seasons bests all dully notated. It is obvious if you compare to the sourced results, but if you let the edits go by, obviously wikipedia is reporting incorrect information to the world.

To all of us, please watch IP edits to our results articles carefully. Very, very few typos exist in these results so numbers should not change. When they do, please check the source and revert the vandal. Trackinfo (talk) 15:12, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

Now it is changing lane assignments. Here's an example. Its little stuff but inaccuracy (when we had it right) makes us look bad. Trackinfo (talk) 22:12, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
This same vandal pattern has now added using multiple, unrelated IP addresses on the same day (still with the consistent alteration of factual data). Trackinfo (talk) 19:52, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

Invite to the African Destubathon

Hi. Members here may be interested in participating in the African Destubathon which starts on October 15. Africa currently has over 37,000 stubs and badly needs a quality improvement editathon/contest to flesh out basic stubs. There are proposed substantial prizes to give to editors who do the most geography, wildlife and women articles, and planned smaller prizes for doing to most destubs for each of the 53 African countries, so should be enjoyable! So it would be a good chance to win something for improving stubs on African women athletes for instance. Even if contests aren't your thing we would be grateful if you could consider destubbing a few African articles during the drive to help the cause and help reduce the massive 37,000 + stub count, of which many are rated high importance (think Regions of countries etc). If you're interested in competing or just loosely contributing a few expanded articles on African athletes, please add your name to the Contestants/participants section. Diversity of work from a lot of people will make this that bit more special. Thanks.♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:47, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

...and for the members of this project, this would be the list of articles to take a look at (assessed as Stub for both WP Athletics and WP Africa) - 303 at the moment. Many (perhaps most?) of them are apparently not really stubs anymore, so reassessing them while one's at it would also be a good thing. GregorB (talk) 09:49, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
May I also add, there are many red links on the Template:National members of the International Association of Athletics Federations, particularly in Africa. I've created a few which can be embellished but many are simply missing information. Trackinfo (talk) 22:19, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Request for HH:MM:SS in Wikidata

Just an FYI - I've made a proposal to allow input of times in Hours:Minutes:Seconds format in Wikidata as part of this year's m:2016 Community Wishlist Survey. Such a change would finally allow us to add records, results and personal bests for events longer than the 400 m. SFB 00:12, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

I've just made a brief comment on Meta. I think this is an important proposal that would really be beneficial for this project.
Voting on the proposals will start on November 28, so I'd like to ask members of this project to take part and support this idea. GregorB (talk) 12:36, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

2016 Community Wishlist Survey Proposal to Revive Popular Pages

Greetings WikiProject Athletics/Archive 8 Members!

This is a one-time-only message to inform you about a technical proposal to revive your Popular Pages list in the 2016 Community Wishlist Survey that I think you may be interested in reviewing and perhaps even voting for:

If the above proposal gets in the Top 10 based on the votes, there is a high likelihood of this bot being restored so your project will again see monthly updates of popular pages.

Further, there are over 260 proposals in all to review and vote for, across many aspects of wikis.

Thank you for your consideration. Please note that voting for proposals continues through December 12, 2016.

Best regards, Stevietheman — Delivered: 17:52, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

RfC on template display options

There is an RfC about a template that falls into the purview of this project. Your input is requested at the template's talk page. Primefac (talk) 14:46, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

With the holiday season over, I thought it might be worth bumping this discussion. Primefac (talk) 03:00, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Russian WBYPs/WLs

I was trying to update the women's race walk WBYP footer, and I wasn't sure whether Lashmanova's 1:24:58 should count as the World Best Year Performance or not, given that Russian athletes (or at least the All-Russia Athletic Federation) were suspended by the IAAF throughout the year. "Follow the sources" doesn't give a clear answer; IAAF shows Liu Hong as the world leader and relegates the Russian marks to an appendix, but other sources like T&FN and Tilastopaja give Lashmanova as the world leader. We had a rough consensus a couple years ago that when the IAAF annuls a mark due to doping, we follow suit and no longer consider that mark the WBYP; but I'm not sure whether that is applicable here. Another possible precedent might be the suspension of apartheid-era South Africa; we do list Zola Budd as the women's 5000 world leader for 1983, though not, I think, as the result of any consensus. Any views - should we consider Lashmanova and Vera Rebrik the 2016 world leaders, even though the IAAF does not? Sideways713 (talk) 15:37, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

@Sideways713: You could hedge it and put both? There are reasonable arguments either side. I find racewalking rankings to be a bit of a nonsense though. The judging element means many of the best times are found in races where only national judges are present. I often find it an incomparable sport in terms of time. SFB 23:54, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

16,000 BLPs moving out of mainspace

Hi. Some of you will be aware of an ongoing issue of BLP articles created by Sander.v.Ginkel. The background at ANI can be found here. The discussion on the cleanup can be found here. In short, 16,000 BLP articles are being moved out of the mainspace to draftspace. This has already started following a Bot Approval. This should be complete in the next 48hrs or so. Articles will remain in draft for 90 days. In that time, they can be checked, and if OK, moved back to the mainspace. Anything not checked after 90 days will be deleted automatically.

So how can you help? The BLPs are broken down by occupational area. If an one of these interests you, please help. Even if it is checking one article. Check the article that has been moved to draft that a) it meets the notability requirement of the occupational area in question and b) that the facts in the article are supported by the sources. This includes, but is not limited to, the dates of birth, who they represented, when they were active, etc. If there are elements that can not be supported by the sources, they must be removed. If you are happy with the article, then move it back into the mainspace. DO NOT move anything until you have checked the sources, or supplied other reliable sources to support information in the article that may not already be cited. More information can be found here.

This is not going to be an easy task. I don't think there's too much support to check 16,000+ articles and I suspect that most of them will be gone after 90 days. If you have any questions, please raise them here. Thanks. Lugnuts Precious bodily fluids 11:47, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Athletics articles up for deletion

FYI - a large number of multisport articles have been put up for deletion by User:Sportsfan1234, including several on athletics, such as the entirely of Athletics at the National Games of China. Please contribute to the discussions. Thanks. SFB 00:19, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

Mumbai marathon - gold label?

In this edit someone added (without ref) the claim that the Mumbai Marathon is one of the IAAF Road Race Label Events. The event's article makes the same claim. But neither has a ref. The event is not listed in {{IAAF Gold Label}}, which (if it really is one) it should be. What's actually true? -- Finlay McWalter··–·Talk 15:38, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

The Mumbai Marathon was an IAAF Gold Label Road Race from 2010 to 2012 and an IAAF Silver Label Road Race before that, but no longer has any Label status. I have reverted the edit you linked. Sideways713 (talk) 17:19, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

200 Athletes up for deletion

A review in to the work of one editor has resulted in 200 athlete articles requiring review and they may be subject to deletion. Please help review the affected articles at the links below and restore the articles to the mainspace if they contain no biographical issues. Thanks SFB 20:53, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Routine

Not that I want to distract us from rescuing 16,000 articles, but we have another infection on the horizon. An editor has successfully deleted a few Masters athletics related articles based on WP:ROUTINE, as in; the mentions of their world championship results and world records are merely routine coverage. So much of the coverage of our sport is statistics. If this logic persists, whole swaths of our content, innumerable stub articles that only mention an athletes's world championship medal for example, could be deleted on the same grounds. There is a whole diseased group of wikipedia editors who get their jollies out of deleting content. They have an echo chamber of robots who will say "me too to anything in an AfD. I'm used to winning my AfD arguments but its always a battle vs the mindless. I think we as a project should protect our content by clearly defining what is valid and what is ignorable ROUTINE coverage relative to our sport. Trackinfo (talk) 08:57, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

I doubt we as a project can define ROUTINE differently from Wikipedia as a whole; and even if we could, we shouldn't. Statistics are an enormously important tool when it comes to sourcing athletics articles, but in most cases they don't establish notability; they're either too routine, or don't amount to significant coverage of any specific athlete, or both. Athlete pages on stats sites like all-athletics and Tilastopaja are routine because those sites cover too many athletes, including some with absolutely zero claim to athletic notability. Lists of world records usually only mention any one athlete in passing, so they fail SIGCOV. Meeting reports in news sources can sometimes provide significant non-routine coverage, but more commonly they just go "athlete A of club B, who won events 1 and 2 and placed second in event 3, was the top athlete of the meet" which is neither significant coverage or non-routine. The problem with mentions of world championship results, world records or anything is that mere mentions, even if not routine, aren't significant coverage.
Statistics are the backbone of most athletics articles, but they're not sufficient basis for creating an article in the first place. If they were, we could flood Wikipedia with stat articles about completely non-notable athletes, some of whom might have a real claim to notability through something other than athletics. Sideways713 (talk) 17:29, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
Did the articles in question meet WP:NTRACK? You're mentioning WRs, so I'm assuming they did, because masters WR holders are presumed notable per WP:NTRACK #7. If that is the case, then I believe WP:ROUTINE is being misconstrued. WP:SPORTCRIT says e.g. Local sources must be clearly independent of the subject, and must provide reports beyond routine game coverage. Furthermore, WP:ROUTINE says Run-of-the-mill events—common, everyday, ordinary items that do not stand out—are probably not notable. I believe this means the following: while one cannot use coverage of routine sports events (e.g. sports league matches) to establish notability, setting a world record is not a routine event and therefore does not fall under WP:ROUTINE. GregorB (talk) 17:40, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
Frankly, the editor causing the problem is deliberately trying to deconstruct WP:NTRACK based on discrediting sources thus the athletes assumption of notability and subject matter does not meet WP:GNG. When articles with 11 sources can have all those sources Xed off by being called ROUTINE, then there is no stability to our articles about athletes. Trackinfo (talk) 19:00, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
While WP:ROUTINE has been cited in some recent AfD discussions for masters athletes, it seems to me that an even more commonly cited issue has been that sources only mention the athletes in passing and don't provide significant coverage; which is understandable, since many of the deleted articles have been full of sources like that. Nothing wrong with that - sources like that can be very good sources, and even very good non-routine sources - but, even when there are 11 (or 21, or 50) of them, they don't establish notability. As both GNG and SPORTCRIT note, notability requires sources that discuss the athlete directly and with some depth and detail; and lists of records and championships medalists, while not routine, seldom have such in-depth coverage. Sideways713 (talk) 19:54, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
I agree - while I think WP:ROUTINE is a weak argument here, WP:GNG is much tougher to argue against. However, if in this particular case WP:NTRACK is simply trumped by WP:GNG, then we might as well abolish the WP:NTRACK altogether. I'd still say that huge list of criteria at WP:NSPORTS exists for a reason. GregorB (talk) 21:08, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
A literal interpretation of WP:Routine would see half the biographies on Wikipedia deleted. It makes the mistake of judging an article on the source rather than the subject. I always consider whether the person has done something of long-term significance before writing an article. NTRACK does a good job of that, focusing our efforts on covering major medallists and record setters, global level competitors, nationally important people. I think we're heading to point where there is a general push back against sports articles. I don't think athletics is very responsible for this, but rather team sports where sports-specific notability rules have come to include people who played one game for Oldham F.C. in 1995 or handball players who played ten minutes as a substitute for Macedonia in European qualifying. The tide is firmly against broad sports coverage – a thought-out or detailed reason for deletion is no longer required for deleting certain sports articles, as shown at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Weightlifting at the 2013 National Games of China. SFB 14:15, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

As I was finishing the last athlete from the SvG cleanup Ivan Shablyuyev, it proved the point. He, a WC participant from Russia has less available information than the deleted Ihar Dolbik. Galina Kovalenskaya sat in the same limbo but was successful based on the weakness of available sources from behind the former Iron Curtain. Four other articles Sue Yeomans, Terhi Kokkonen (athlete), Fatiha Idmhand and Bianca Schenker were successfully deleted All had more information and at least equitable sources. As SFB said, half or our articles, or at least the stubs, could get wiped out if someone were to go on a rampage. There are those kind of creeps on wikipedia. That is why I think we need a specification to NTRACK to explain that lists are a key component to the coverage of athletics and are not merely routine. This IS a lot of the coverage we get, even at the Olympic level, however it is significant to our sport. Trackinfo (talk) 10:38, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Personal Bests and disqualifications

Further to the news today regarding Mariya Savinova (and with other suspended / disqualified athletes) am I right in believing this also invalidates other Personal Bests / National Records / Championship Records etc? Koncorde (talk) 16:27, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

In Savinova's case, all marks set between 26 July 2010 and 19 August 2013 have been nuked, and thus aren't eligible to be bests or records of any kind; though it's better to note those marks as nuked than to erase any mention of them. If it's not clear whether a given mark (or a given record) has been nuked, we must be very careful. Sideways713 (talk) 18:01, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
We have always mentioned, for example, Ben Johnson's marks, etc etc. And we do mention disqualifications throughout those occurrences. Do not erase. Trackinfo (talk) 19:02, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
As usual, the real trouble here is that her IAAF profile still lists some marks which are or should have been expunged as her PBs. IAAF.org is still a reliable source (even if it's obviously not up to date sometimes), and I wouldn't support saying any of the marks were annulled without a reliable source that says exactly so (i.e. WP:SYNTH is not needed to reach that conclusion). GregorB (talk) 22:42, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
As a relatively inexperienced editor on these sort of things I tend to keep clear. I just noticed that someone had made the effort to DSQ most of her achievements, but other values remained populated. Good to know for future reference. Cheers all. Koncorde (talk) 13:49, 17 February 2017 (UTC)
I always try to retain the original marks – I find it very confusing to see a retrospective DQ in the final list, but no original place or timing to show whether that person finished 1st or 8th! SFB 14:17, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Track Spikes Page- Speciifically "Type of Spike" section and "Design" section

First of all great start to the page! It's definitely off to a good start and better than some of the other sports equipment pages I've seen. I think this article could be more in depth and informative to the wiki searcher. For example, in the "Type of Spike" section, they do a good job of describing the three main types of spikes. However an accompanying visual would be nice. There are a lot of nice visuals describing all of the different types of track spikes. You would just need to get the permission from the company who posted the pic to the internet. Additionally, there are different variations, mainly size, within the three main categories. I think this would be worth mentioning as well.

Also in the "Design" section the type of metal used could be included as well. This would mainly be helpful for students in sports engineering classes.

Maryskijagfan (talk) 17:51, 18 April 2017 (UTC)Maryskijagfan

Women in Red online editathon on sports and athletics

Welcome to Women in Red's
May 2017 worldwide online editathon.
Participation is welcome in any language.

(To subscribe: Women in Red/English language list and Women in Red/international list. Unsubscribe: Women in Red/Opt-out list) --Ipigott (talk) 11:53, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

RFC on sports notability

An RFC has recently been started regarding a potential change to the notability guidelines for sportspeople. Please join in the conversation. Thank you. Primefac (talk) 23:07, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Popular pages report

We – Community Tech – are happy to announce that the Popular pages bot is back up-and-running (after a one year hiatus)! You're receiving this message because your WikiProject or task force is signed up to receive the popular pages report. Every month, Community Tech bot will post at Wikipedia:WikiProject Athletics/Archive 8/Popular pages with a list of the most-viewed pages over the previous month that are within the scope of WikiProject Athletics.

We've made some enhancements to the original report. Here's what's new:

  • The pageview data includes both desktop and mobile data.
  • The report will include a link to the pageviews tool for each article, to dig deeper into any surprises or anomalies.
  • The report will include the total pageviews for the entire project (including redirects).

We're grateful to Mr.Z-man for his original Mr.Z-bot, and we wish his bot a happy robot retirement. Just as before, we hope the popular pages reports will aid you in understanding the reach of WikiProject Athletics, and what articles may be deserving of more attention. If you have any questions or concerns please contact us at m:User talk:Community Tech bot.

Warm regards, the Community Tech Team 17:16, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Quick Question

What is a A in an athletics page likely to mean? Several of the PBs on Kurt Felix's page have that next to them. I presume they're area records but it's not clear anywhere on the page and I can't find a note about it. Red Fiona (talk) 15:43, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

"A" means mark set at altitude (at least 1000 metres above sea level). If you see any abbreviation on an athletics page that isn't clearly explained, consider putting it in an {{AthAbbr}} template; there's a 99% chance it will be right.
(The only ambiguous abbreviation I can think of is lowercase "a", which usually means "aided course" but sometimes means "auto time pretending to be a hand time"; in the latter case AthAbbr would get it wrong.) Sideways713 (talk) 18:36, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
Thanks. Red Fiona (talk) 21:36, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Question about Parkview Cross Country Course

I haven't worked on athletics articles, so I wasn't sure what to do with this. Parkview Cross Country Course has one paragraph about the course, with one reference that does not mention the this cross country course as far as I can tell. The rest of the article is results from the 2009 PIAA high school state championship held at the course. I'm not sure if either the cross country course or the high school championship is notable. Leschnei (talk) 02:03, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

Removing gay athletes from gay categories

User:Kevin_McE is wholly invested in removing the entry Colin_Jackson from the appropriate LGBT sportspeople categories, using what I can only describe as a nonsensical argument that Jackson doesn't belong in the category because he's identifying as gay is irrelevant to his public life - despite the fact that he's come out and did so in a public venue (on TV no less). Jackson previously denied being gay, and the entry has covered his denial for years. It makes sense that it must now acknowledge his admission. Kevin insists on not accepting that point. Can you all please add your two cents on the Talk Page to the entry? Thanks. Rafe87 (talk) 16:04, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

I don't know why Rafe87 has thought fit to raise this here: maybe there is grounds for discussion at WP:CATEGRS, the relevant policy. Kevin McE (talk) 21:11, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

Requesting re-assessment of an article

Hello. Is there a place where we can ask for article to be re-assessed; I've been reviewing and adding content to Kévin Mayer and I believe it should be upgraded from Stub; I'd love to hear from you regarding content and style. Thanks! P.S. I know there isn't that much content to justify subheaders under Career, but I'm planning on adding more information in the coming days so please don't erase those. --Luisftd (talk) 17:01, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

Request to update wiki page of an athlete

I have come across a wiki page of an athlete, Siddhanth Thingalaya who happen to be a good friend of mine. But his wiki page is missing lots of information about his latest achievements. Can anyone help me update his wiki page?

Kiran247 (talk) 11:20, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

I started a format for the Achievements section. You can continue it. --Kasper2006 (talk) 17:21, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Links to results

Hi, I was working on Lisa Ryzih and wanted to reference some of her results. I went to the 2016 European Athletics Championships – Women's pole vault page, and when I looked up the listed results, they were for the 2016 under 20s Euro Championships. I've fixed the link there but just a heads up that some of the Euro results might be wrongly referenced. Red Fiona (talk) 16:45, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

Discussion at NSPORTS

Hello all. In an effort to finally resolve the never-ending and annoying GNG v SSG issue, I've proposed a revision of the NSPORTS introduction. You are all invited to take part in the discussion. Thank you. Jack | talk page 06:20, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Request of reverse redirect from Fell running to Mountain running

Here I invite the participants to the project to express their opinion. --Kasper2006 (talk) 17:21, 30 September 2017 (UTC)


WikiProject Women in Red/The World Contest

Hi. In November The Women in Red World Contest is being held to try to produce new articles for as many countries worldwide and occupations as possible. There will be over $4000 in prizes to win, including Amazon vouchers and paid subscriptions. If this would appeal to you and you think you'd be interested in contributing new articles on women athletes during this month please sign up in the participants section. If you're not interested in prize money yourself but are willing to participate and raise money to buy books about women for others to use, this is also fine. Help would also be appreciated in drawing up the lists of missing articles. If you think of any missing articles for your project please add them to the lists by continent at Missing articles. Thankyou, and if taking part, good luck!♦ Dr. Blofeld 09:55, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Disambiguation links on pages tagged by this wikiproject

Wikipedia has many thousands of wikilinks which point to disambiguation pages. It would be useful to readers if these links directed them to the specific pages of interest, rather than making them search through a list. Members of WikiProject Disambiguation have been working on this and the total number is now below 20,000 for the first time. Some of these links require specialist knowledge of the topics concerned and therefore it would be great if you could help in your area of expertise.

A list of the relevant links on pages which fall within the remit of this wikiproject can be found at http://69.142.160.183/~dispenser/cgi-bin/topic_points.py?banner=WikiProject_Athletics

Please take a few minutes to help make these more useful to our readers.— Rod talk 13:13, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

Sport organization political battles

There is a problem that is alluded to in several articles about this subject that I think we should cover but I don't know how we would approach it. This goes beyond Track and field Athletics but keeps affecting people's decisions as athletes. I see it in the U.S. but I believe it happens everywhere. Each sports governing body tries to use their influence; to dictate how or where athletes perform, how or if they can make money; to expand their territory and authority. Historically in the US we have had an alphabet soup of the AAU, USOC, USATF, NCAA, NJCAA, CCCAA, NFHS, ITA, USTFCCCA to name a few just involved with our sport, each playing a 3 dimensional chess game for power and influence over different territories of the sport and other sports using Athletics related sports as pawns in the power struggle. I see other NGBs have been replaced, there are obviously stories like this happening in other countries. Its an ongoing phenomenon. So my question here is how do we present this, even how do we describe it and put a name to it. Or has it already been done and I just don't know about it? Is this a sports related version of a natural political phenomenon to governing bodies of all sorts? Trackinfo (talk) 03:42, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

I suppose where there are disputes between bodies you could note that in the organization pages or athlete biographies. Ultimately I would class this as sport-specific politics – groups of people fighting over power and culture. A lot goes unsaid on this topic. For track, perhaps the most obvious instances at the moment are athletes who break the national boundaries and compete for other countries. Going further back, the professional/amateur divide was perhaps the most important. I don't think we've got much coverage of athletics organization in general, which is a shame as there are many different models, from the German club model, to grand Chinese state structures, the Japanese corporate model, mixed Anglophone state/commercial/charitable models, European coach-led East African recruitment companies, university grown American talent, armed force athletics clubs... it's quite fascinating how all these conflicting things result in the elite level of the sport! SFB 20:40, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

Olympic disqualifications

The disaster in our sport keeps coming back. We are in the eternal phase where positive doping tests have been announced officially, even doping bans announced officially, but Olympics.org has NOT changed the results. A host of editors, many with IP addresses, keep coming back trying to update our results articles and connected athlete bios to take into account the new, sourced information about the tests and the bans. Sources state facts based on the obvious conjecture. Because the IOC is so slow to make an official decision, we are posting results that do not agree with the official results from the official organization. One of the benefits of wikipedia is that we can provide better information than just one source provides. Do we give up and post the conjecture, or enforce sticking with what the IOC has posted? [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] Trackinfo (talk) 21:03, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

@Trackinfo: Normally there is an announcement when they've reassigned the medals, so where that announcement hasn't been made I think we're good to cross out the disqualified athlete(s) but leave them in place on the results tables to show the placings have not yet been amended. I remember being pretty angry at the results of the 2012 Olympic women's middle-distance races when I was watching at the time, so I'm not in the least bit surprised to see how messy those finals are turning out in the long-term. Writing Doping at the World Championships in Athletics was certainly a reminder of the state of the sport. One hopes the bio passport mitigates the levels of cheating in future. SFB 23:27, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Athletics results articles

Hi – I've made an effort to gather together all the "Results" spin-off articles into one place at Category:Events at athletics (track and field) competitions. Lots of these didn't have a real place in the category structure so it should be easier to see what's available now. Major events are split out into articles by event (e.g. Category:100 metres at the African Games) while the lesser ones have grouped results pages (e.g. Athletics at the 2013 Mediterranean Games – Results). Along the way I spotted a few outliers:

These topics are punching above their weight coverage-wise with event-level articles and given the standard (e.g. 35 mins for a 10,000 m medal) I suggest we merge them into the usual "X – Results" format. @CroesJ and Pietaster: – you both seem to be busy in this topic area. Any thoughts? Also, I've noticed that the Category:Events at the IAAF Continental Cups have their own naming convention. Should we rename these like 1977 IAAF World Cup – Results to mirror the usual standard? SFB 23:22, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Good work with the categorization, thanks! It's a good idea to merge these articles as right now we seem to have different standards for different editions. I may go ahead and do the first one since it's my creation (when I'm done with current project). I also have nothing against renaming the Continental Cup/World Cup results pages – I just went with the existing convention when creating those. Pietaster (talk) 00:01, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Deletions

As always, I found out about this too late. Our project was not notified on articles related to our project. Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Caribbean#Deleted. The one that drew my attention was Densley Joseph, two time CARITFA U17 Gold medalist in Javelin for  Grenada, 1999 and 2000, bronze U20 in 2003, plus CAC silver in 2000. And this guy was deemed not notable by a couple of no-nothings. And why does his name search so poorly?

How do we get notified of AfDs against athletes? What recourse do we have against this new trend that can now be used as a precedent? Trackinfo (talk) 07:23, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

@Trackinfo: As part of the deletion process, all the incoming links were removed (hence athlete names are now showing unlinked). Any article tagged with the Athletics project banner on the talk page will be listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Athletics/Article alerts if someone nominates this for deletion. The main problem I see is that people are not adding project banners to the talk page. In that circumstance (like those below), the project will not be notified as the articles have not been associated with it. Ideally the article alerts could be based off a category tree, rather than just the project tag.
I've requested a retrospective undelete from the closing admin (User:GB fan) of a few athletes who are more than just CARIFTA medalists and have competed at senior international level and/or are senior national record holders:
Welcome to the fun world of Wikipedia deletion @Greensfire: Quite a few of the athlete articles you wrote about didn't meet the notability requirements, so they won't be restored. You can read about what kind of new athlete articles we are looking for at WP:NTRACK. In general, the focus is on senior international medallists and people who have ranked highly at major senior competitions. So for example, someone medalling at the CARIFTA Games isn't enough (though performing in a Pan American Games final would be sufficient). Aside from these guidelines, if you can find multiple reliable third party sources (e.g. national newspaper articles) that directly discuss the subject then that in itself is a claim to notability under WP:GNG rules. These things aren't always clear at times but you can always drop in here if you need any advice. SFB 02:23, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Steeplechase

I have requested that the above article be renamed. Thanks. SFB 21:51, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject tagging request

Please see WP:BOTREQ#WikiProject Athletics tagging, where project input is requested.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  23:44, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Athletics/Track and field link clean-up

Hi all, I've requested a bot run to fix wikilinks to the track and field and sport of athletics articles given the mixed history. I've requested the following changes be made:

  • [[track and field|athletics]] → [[sport of athletics|athletics]]
  • [[track and field athletics|athletics]] → [[sport of athletics|athletics]]
  • [[sport of athletics|track and field]] → [[track and field]]
  • [[sport of athletics|track and field athletics]] → [[track and field]]
  • [[athletics (sport)|track and field]] → [[track and field]]
  • [[athletics (sport)|track and field athletics]] → [[track and field]]
  • [[athletics (sport)|athletics]] → [[sport of athletics|athletics]]

The intention is to point to the best target depending on what is already shown to the reader. The final change will allow us to point athletics (sport) to the disambiguation page athletics (disambiguation), because that page title is not clearly different from athletics (physical culture) for American readers.

Any suggestions/issues? SFB 14:56, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for this! I agree that the name confusion is a really important issue and I think it's a great idea to fix via bot. From a U.S. perspective I'm worried about the "track and field" links though, i.e.:
  • [[sport of athletics|track and field]] → [[track and field]]
  • [[sport of athletics|track and field athletics]] → [[track and field]]
  • [[athletics (sport)|track and field]] → [[track and field]]
  • [[athletics (sport)|track and field athletics]] → [[track and field]]
The problem I can see with these, is that often times people say the phrase "track and field" in the U.S. to mean basically the same as sport of athletics (after all, our governing body USATF manages everything from sprints to ultra running, and when people say "track and field at the Olympics" they usually mean including the marathon). They way I see it, saying "track and field" and linking it to sport of athletics is an explicit way of saying, "I'm using this all-encompassing definition of track and field, not just events in a stadium."
So if they meant that and then their links get changed to point to something that emphasizes "events in a stadium" (as per the Wikipedia definition of track and field, where the "marathon" alternative meaning is only mentioned as an aside in one sentence) then we would be changing the meaning of the text.
I'm not sure about the best way to remedy this other than to just be a lot more cautious about these four transformations particularly (the other three look fine to me). Perhaps advanced filters could be applied to not do the replacements in articles about global championships that include marathons, or in articles that have {{American English}} in their talk pages. What do you think? Habst (talk) 21:20, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
@Habst: Yeah, I think there is the possibility of an editor choosing to show "track and field" to the user when the editor actually means the sport of athletics, but I think it's always a poor journey for the user. Many American readers will be surprised to have ended up at sport of athletics, as I know the term and its meaning is unfamiliar to most people not familiar with the sport. American and non-American users will both wonder why the link didn't go to track and field in the first place. I think it should be standard practice to be explicit when linking to "sport of athletics" in this way, because it's a much better experience to read "track and field is part of an athletics competition programme" at a given article, rather than using non-intuitive links to achieve this. The situation doesn't have to be confusing for anyone if done clearly (e.g. Athletics at the Summer Olympics). SFB 20:13, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
@Sillyfolkboy: Thanks for your explanation, after thinking about it I agree we should avoid the easter egg and change to the displayed text. Habst (talk) 20:29, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Proposed article title naming conventions at WP:NCSP

I've written some proposed naming conventions at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (sportspeople)#Athletics (track and field). Unfortunately, our naming conventions have been inconsistent and there are many articles which don't follow these rules right now, but I think it's a sensible start. Feel free to edit and discuss changes here, and I'll leave it up for a week before removing {{Proposal}}. Habst (talk) 18:30, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

@Habst: This proposed convention is roughly what I think most of us have been doing for some time. One thing missing is that in the event of multiple runners, the type can sometimes be used (e.g. Miklós Szabó (middle-distance runner)/Miklós Szabó (long-distance runner)).
In terms of the main handle of "(athlete)", I use this where no other sportspeople exist (e.g. Mack Robinson). If other sportspeople of the same name exist, I'll move to an event level handle (e.g. Jonathan Edwards). I think "athlete" is fine to use where it can be read by the reader as either sportsperson or athletics competitor without this causing any confusion. It also helps to keep redlinks aligned. SFB 13:10, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

Isaac Caldiero

Is Isaac Caldiero Mid-Class importance? I noticed that talk:Isaac Caldiero says "MID", but the article page lists only one non-mainstream significant accomplishment in athletics/track&field (that being the basis of the article). While he does compete athletically in non-mainstream ninjasport, he's primarily a rock climber. -- 65.94.42.219 (talk) 06:10, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

This wikiproject is about the sport of athletics (AKA track and field), not athletics (physical culture). I couldn't find anything related to track in that article, so I removed the template. Thanks for bringing it up here! (P.S. I don't think we take the importance or tagging too seriously, so you're free to remove that or change it on other articles in the future if you think it's incorrect.) --Habst (talk) 06:29, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject collaboration notice from the Portals WikiProject

The reason I am contacting you is because there are one or more portals that fall under this subject, and the Portals WikiProject is currently undertaking a major drive to automate portals that may affect them.

Portals are being redesigned.

The new design features are being applied to existing portals.

At present, we are gearing up for a maintenance pass of portals in which the introduction section will be upgraded to no longer need a subpage. In place of static copied and pasted excerpts will be self-updating excerpts displayed through selective transclusion, using the template {{Transclude lead excerpt}}.

The discussion about this can be found here.

Maintainers of specific portals are encouraged to sign up as project members here, noting the portals they maintain, so that those portals are skipped by the maintenance pass. Currently, we are interested in upgrading neglected and abandoned portals. There will be opportunity for maintained portals to opt-in later, or the portal maintainers can handle upgrading (the portals they maintain) personally at any time.

Background

On April 8th, 2018, an RfC ("Request for comment") proposal was made to eliminate all portals and the portal namespace. On April 17th, the Portals WikiProject was rebooted to handle the revitalization of the portal system. On May 12th, the RfC was closed with the result to keep portals, by a margin of about 2 to 1 in favor of keeping portals.

There's an article in the current edition of the Signpost interviewing project members about the RfC and the Portals WikiProject.

Since the reboot, the Portals WikiProject has been busy building tools and components to upgrade portals.

So far, 84 editors have joined.

If you would like to keep abreast of what is happening with portals, see the newsletter archive.

If you have any questions about what is happening with portals or the Portals WikiProject, please post them on the WikiProject's talk page.

Thank you.    — The Transhumanist   07:26, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

AchievementTable - Extra data

I've noticed that quite a bit of extra information is being added to Template:AchievementTable, particularly with sprinting. I've added Time and Wind columns to account for that and have done a first try at Zharnel Hughes. Any thoughts? Should we move things like w and CR into the Notes column or leave next to the time? SFB 17:08, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for this! I've always thought that {{AchievementTable}} deserved an update and I'm glad you were able to get to it before me. I think the record abbreviations like CR belong in the Notes column, but definitely w, h, and maybe some others like mx (and of course DNS or DNF) all belong in the time column to better match actual result listings. I also wonder if prelim and semifinal heats should have their own rows (and thus a corresponding column to denote that), to handle cases like in Zharnel Hughes where he set an NR in the heats. I might try to mess with it and see if we can make the round an optional column as well for that. --Habst (talk) 17:46, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

Authorised Neutral Athletes, a team or individual Authorised Neutral Athlete

Please look Talk:Authorised Neutral Athletes. --Pelmeen10 (talk) 15:27, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

European Athletics Meetings templates

{{European Athletics Premium Permit Meetings}} and {{European Athletics Classic Permit Meetings}} have not been updated for some time. Maybe we should merge them into one template. European_Athletic_Association#Meetings also needs update, what about including templates to that section without text (like IAAF page, updating only at 1 place is easier). Other 2 templates are {{European Athletics Indoor Permit Meetings}} and {{EAA Cross Country Meetings}}. What do you think? --Pelmeen10 (talk) 00:37, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Request for article Grading from C to B for Eliud Kipchoge

Dear my fellow Wikipedians,

the article for the new world record holder in the mens marathon, Eliud Kipchoge received a lot of improvements in the days following his impressive run in Berlin on 16 Sep, 2018. In my pov the article should be be upgraded from a C grading to a B grading. I would be happy for a review into my request.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliud_Kipchoge

Regards,
Da Vinci Nanjing (talk) 16:55, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Juli or Julie Henner?

Hi. Can anyone can help with the correct name of this individual, per this discussion? She took part in the 1500m at the 1996 Olympics. Thanks. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 09:49, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

IAAF has Julie as heading but juli in the page-address...: https://www.iaaf.org/athletes/united-states/juli-henner-71426WeiaR (talk) 10:12, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
She has been coach at Georgetown University, they write consequently Juli. WeiaR (talk) 10:24, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
It definitely is Juli, here she is: http://julibensontraining.com/about-me/ WeiaR (talk) 10:27, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Missing World Marathon Majors winners

Hello. I was wondering if anyone would like to help create articles on World Marathon Majors winners. These redlinks are at List of winners of the Boston Marathon, Berlin Marathon, List of winners of the Chicago Marathon and List of winners of the New York City Marathon. Thank you :) --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 01:48, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

"higher claim"

Hi all, I've noticed a couple of bio articles that use the phrase "higher claim to [athletics club]" without explaining what this means (see Chris Clarke (sprinter) and Andrew Walcott). Is there a WP article (or section of one) that explains such things? If so, it'd be useful to link to it, so the uninitiated like myself aren't left scrabbling for Google. Cheers, Nzd (talk) 00:54, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

@Nzd: Hi, I've added extra detail on this subject to the sports club article and created a redirect from higher claim. Does this help make it clearer? Thanks SFB 18:47, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
@Sillyfolkboy: Yeah, that's much better. Thanks for that. Nzd (talk) 20:46, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

GA Reassessment at Joachim Müncheberg

Joachim Müncheberg, an article that you or your project may be interested in, has been nominated for an individual good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. –dlthewave ☎ 21:06, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

TFD notification

Only WP:CFB was notified. I think all relevant sports should participate in this discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2019 April 4#Athletic program head coaches navboxes.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 01:11, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Adding a part to the infobox on Boston Marathon

Hello, I think it is a good idea to add a part to the infobox in Boston Marathon that has a redirect to the latest race. In this case, being the 2019 Boston Marathon. Also, please see Template talk:Infobox athletics race Please ping me when updated or replied. IsraeliIdan (talk) 12:43, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Unassessed article tagged as stubs

Hi. Currently, Category:Unassessed Athletics articles includes over 20,000 pages. Of these, around 9200 are already tagged as stubs. Would the wikiproject support / object to a bot run to assess these articles as stub-class? --DannyS712 (talk) 06:21, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

hi, i have no issue with this as long as the usual bot precautions are taken and we can be sure about the edits. it seems like a good idea. --Habst (talk) 07:31, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

Stats graphs

I've made an attempt at incorporating some stats graphs into biographies using Template:Graph:Chart. Above is an example using Kim Collins's seasonal bests. More examples are visible at Tero Pitkämäki#Seasonal bests and Usain Bolt#Season's bests. Does anyone have any thoughts on what kind of information we can add using this template? My initial thoughts have focused on season's bests and rankings, but I'm sure there are many other things that graphs would we useful for. SFB 21:39, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

Call for portal maintainers

Are there any editors from this WikiProject willing to maintain Portal:Sport of athletics? The Portals guideline requires that portals be maintained, and as a result numerous portals have been recently been deleted via MfD largely becasue of lack of maintenance. Let me know either way, and thanks, UnitedStatesian (talk) 19:29, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

Countries at the World Athletics Championships

Arorae raised some concerns about the nation sub-articles for the 2019 World Athletics Championships being mass moved into draft space. Most of these articles were about 1-person delegations and fully sourced, which suggests that the articles were moved due to concerns about the suitability of the articles in general rather than sourcing (Discospinster?)

My opinion on this type of article is that countries that typically send small delegations would be better served by just an article at the overall championships level (e.g. Vanuatu at the World Athletics Championships), rather than by year. The effort to create and maintain 200+ country articles for each championships is very high and I think directing our efforts to the "country at championships" level, then redirecting the year links to that article, would be a better use of our time. For example, 75% of nations at the 2019 World Championships in Athletics are sending fewer than ten athletes and 100 of the 209 nations are sending a single athlete. There is a clear need for an article on the United States' 159-athlete delegation for the 2019 World Championships, but an article for a delegation of one feels like overkill to me. Any thoughts about the best approach for this? In the meantime, I'll try to create championships-level articles and redirects for the 1-person delegations this year as a start. SFB 19:31, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

The articles were not sourced, they had a single reference from 2017 that had nothing to do with the 2019 competition. ... discospinster talk 19:46, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
I fully agree with SFB about the 1-athlete delegations. But some countries have sent 1 athlète this year and much more in other editions. In some editions, 2 athletes were permitted (one male; one female). The very small countries (as Nauru 🇳🇷 !) probably do not deserve a specific article. But Iceland ? But a bigger country that decides one édition to send one athlete — and at the following more than 10 ? It will be difficult to coordinate the editions.-Arorae (talk) 19:51, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
@Discospinster: this is a false assertion (for example Kiribati at the 2019 World Championships in Athletics was exact sourced (2019). Perhaps I have made some copy errors (not changing the 2017 Entry List). But it is very simple to edit. Instead of massive drafting. And what about Indonesia ? No one reference, but you do not draft it ? I could not trust your assertion.-Arorae (talk) 19:55, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
@Arorae: It is not my responsibility to correct your errors. If you are referring to Indonesia at the 2019 World Championships in Athletics, there are two links that serve as references. ... discospinster talk 19:58, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
@Discospinster: It is not my responsibility to correct your massive destruction of my own contributions. With false or not controlled assertions (in less than 1 minutes, more than 10 drafted articles !). As for Kiribati.-Arorae (talk) 20:12, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
My draft moves are valid and correct based on lack of sourcing. If you choose to project some ideological motive then I can't help you with that. ... discospinster talk 20:27, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
like this one [6] ? 😂 !.-Arorae (talk) 21:17, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
I don't think we've got much to gain from a blame approach. Articles can always be moved back to mainspace if they are sourced. I wasn't clear if that action would result in a deletion discussion though, hence starting the conversation. @Discospinster:: if you have no issues with notability then I'm presuming Arorae is OK to move any sourced articles back? SFB 21:27, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
Sourcing was the only issue. ... discospinster talk 21:40, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
blindness is the only issue, as for Kiribati ? 17 articles quickly drafted — even with the right sources.-Arorae (talk) 22:08, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
You are admitting that 16 of the 17 were improperly sourced? ... discospinster talk 22:16, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
when you will admit than at least one was perfectly sourced ? I am afraid, you won’t, because you write me a late message, 5 hours after the moves asking me stopping creating articles…-Arorae (talk) 22:19, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Request for information on WP1.0 web tool

Hello and greetings from the maintainers of the WP 1.0 Bot! As you may or may not know, we are currently involved in an overhaul of the bot, in order to make it more modern and maintainable. As part of this process, we will be rewriting the web tool that is part of the project. You might have noticed this tool if you click through the links on the project assessment summary tables.

We'd like to collect information on how the current tool is used by....you! How do you yourself and the other maintainers of your project use the web tool? Which of its features do you need? How frequently do you use these features? And what features is the tool missing that would be useful to you? We have collected all of these questions at this Google form where you can leave your response. Walkerma (talk) 04:24, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

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